Number Agents

The beauty of Number Agents... "Mathematics is a subject that allows for precise thinking, but when that precise thinking is combined with creativity, openness, visualisation, and flexibility, the mathematics comes alive." - Jo Boaler The beginnings of our loose parts area.... During 2015/2016 our staff did a lot of finding out about maths, we had not engaged in maths PLD for a while and it certainly was an eye opener for us.  I am lucky I work with a reflective, innovative and open staff, as many of the ideas really challenged what we were doing at the time.   Visual maths wasn't an area I had ever given much particular thought to, but the value of it quickly slotted into place in my thinking.  Obviously as junior teachers we use a lot of materials and encourage visual strategies.  However I was surprised to hear our maths facilitator talk about the imaging stage, and how some children would never get there, and that was ok, just to move them on. ...

Once we kick into agency for real, we will create a number agency wall.  This will be a place to locate villains, store tool boxes, check in and check out, and display our company profile and any awards we have won. How you set up your Agency wall is up to you and the children.  Our wall appears over time, meaning on day one it will look like this: Basically just a large question mark on an open space of wall.  In itself this is a hook, to get children wondering and imagining what will this wall be? I know some people go back to school next week, so thought I better post this, so you too can be prepared with your Agency wall.

I often get asked this question, how an earth can children be 'experts' in number agency, when really they are just starting out as learners in this maths business.  I think this article by Tim Taylor answers those questions really well. Casting children as experts in the 'play' does not mean that they are 'expert' they are simply cast in this role.  Being cast in this role allows them to 'play' at being responsible, meeting deadlines, solving problems...it allows them to explore tensions and bring about resolution that no child would ever experience in their day to day life.  It takes away the role of teacher and child, and very much casts you alongside each other as 'equals' in the play.  This I believe is the real power of Mantle of the Expert....and in turn Number Agents.

This is what I think Number Agents and Learning Through Play does for our learners.  Let's all be the teacher they remember for the right reasons :)

I have written a short book about my journey into play based and the ingredients that I have found make this programme run smoothly.  It is only 30 pages, but answers many of the questions that I have been asked about play-based learning.  It will give you an idea how play-based learning can work in a practical sense and hopefully help you to get started on your journey. Click here to purchase from TPT store.

I have developed six word problems that could be used in Stage 2 of setting up agency...the hooking in phase. It can be found here.

If you have not purchased my book and would like to know more please visit here  for a PDF or email me on numberagents@gmail.com for a hard copy version.  There is a lot more in the book to provide you with detail of this process that I will not go into with these blog posts. I have posted a few of these ideas in my first getting ready post, but thought I revisit the specifics of the first 5-6 weeks to help you with the direction your agency may take and how it will come into being. Step One - Right, thinking about the first two-three weeks back at school.  Before any agency is opened children need to be confident and comfortable expressing themselves and an environment of playfulness, creativity and acceptance needs to be built.  The best way I have found to do this is through simple drama games.  I have put several of my go-to games in this resource . My plan when going back is to set up a positive classroom environment with children happy to take risk...

My teacher inquiry last year was around PBL and within that I wanted to think about the crucial ingredients that made my programme work.  I think that often teachers think (as I did) that creating a play based environment means throwing the baby out with the bath water.  In fact this couldn't be further from the truth...I am teaching much smarter than I ever have and my PBL environment still includes everything it always did....children are not missing anything, in fact I see that they are gaining so much! I have created a mind map here , not sure how it will come up, but you should be able to zoom This is just my thinking and there could be a lot more that I have missed, but I am going to use it as a starting point for my planning this year. A lot of people as about planning...the reality is I do have a direction and there is a method in the madness, but to be honest my planning is very skeleton and most of the important planning happens day to day and moment to moment....

Number Agents is an approach to teaching maths that I developed out of the Mantle of the Expert Approach.  In essence Number Agents is an imagined company that work to defeat villains on behalf of clients.  To defeat the villains they must solve math related problems.  Number agents is an approach for juniors (year 1-3) however I believe with a little modification the concept would work brilliantly for senior children.  Number Agents combines drama, play based learning and problem solving to engage, motivate and excite learners.  This imagined world fits with how children love to learn and gives an authenticity and purpose to maths.  It is also a huge amount of fun! You can order a hard copy of the book (spiral bound with the back of each page blank for your own notes) for $20 and $6.50 postage using this form.   Payment details are on this form and I will be in touch with you via email as quickly as I can after getting your order.  Hard cop...

In Agency maths warm ups are an important part of what we do.  They are a great way to reinforce important elements of number sense and strand and explore various concepts in different ways.  In agency maths warm ups usually take the form of games, songs are visual problems such as agent eyes. As warm ups traditionally (as the name suggests) happen at the beginning of the session they are a great way to hook children in, engage them, excite them and motivate them. I am always really sad to see this time used for monotonous recall of facts or speed tests.  I'm not sure about you, but if at the beginning of each maths session I had to recall with speed lists of basic facts I wouldn't be excited, engaged or motivated....it is highly likely I would be stressed and not in a great state for learning.  In fact I still have memories of these lovely warm ups that I dreaded as a learner...they did little to warm me up, and a lot to turn me off maths. It is my belief we n...

This is a basic timetable of what our play based day looks like.  Our days become quite fluid and often we do go off on tangents if children are interested in something in particular. I see play in two forms in our classroom, self-directed by children where they self-select what they would want to do and teacher led play when we are working through Mantle of the Expert and Number Agency.  I call it teacher led because within the process of mantle and number agency we are very much a part of the play, the setting is negotiated and we are very much an equal player. Children self-direct their play and the most popular things for them to do seem to be: Creative time, cutting,gluing, painting doh and kinetic sand Building with blocks and mobilo (they usually take these outside) Sheets and loose parts, building huts etc. Daily 6 Puppets - making up stories etc Pretending to be number agents and play the games we do in company. Use counters, popsicle sticks etc to mak...

2016 was a massive year professionally for me and I thought it may be useful to some if I shared my professional blog posts from my appraisal journal.  These obviously are not all of them, but they are the ones that centred around play based.  The are in order, and just reading them through it becomes obvious just how far I have come.  How does number agents fit into this....beautifully, seamlessly, I love it! I can not wait to see what journey 2017 will take me on! ------------------------------------------- Post 1 It was fabulous to be able to really talk about my where my journey with PBL has taken me so far with particular focus on writing.  Lets think about my assumptions prior to this journey: 1. PBL is just children choosing, it has little to do with learning and is lazy teaching.  Foundation learning and developmental discovery time has a place for new entrants, but only for a certain time period each week, or in a special group run by S...

I am a big big believer in the importance of materials when teaching maths...at all levels.  I don't know about you, but I have always used my fingers, even today I will default to using my fingers if unsure of an answer - but boy oh boy I feel guilty every time I do it as if it should be forbidden and I am breaking some unwritten rule.  I was one of those children who struggled with maths, maths was so abstract for me, I have memories of memorising my times tables (had no understanding of what was actually happening when we multiplied, but boy was I the fast, third in my class!)  I also have memories of mindlessly adding up numbers, filling in worksheets, I have no recollection of being given any materials to use, other than those horrible 10's 100's and 1000's blocks which I had absolutely no clue about.  My place value understanding was non-existent, but I knew that rule of carrying the one brilliantly!  Never mind that I actually did not realise that one s...